Uniquely Identifying Reference Types in the Debugger

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What you’re looking for are object id’s. For any referenc type in the debugger you can right click and say “Make Object ID”. This will add a # suffix to the value column whenever that instance is displayed in the debugger. You can also add #1, #2, etc … to the watch window to see them again any time later.

Step 0 – Run this code

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    var x = "a string";
    var y = x;
    System.Diagnostics.Debugger.Break();
}

Step 1 – Right Click and select “Make Object Id”

alt text

Step 2 – Instances now display with the 1# suffix. Note: I did nothing special in this step. Immediately after clicking “Make Object Id” both rows updated to display the 1# suffix since they refer to the same instance.

alt text

Step 3 – See them at any time by adding 1# to the watch window

alt text

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